The invention relates to a barrier system. More particularly, the invention relates to a vehicle and pedestrian barrier system which can be positioned in vehicle and pedestrian passageways adjacent a protected structure or area to preclude the vehicle or the pedestrian from reaching and engaging the protected structure or area.
For some time, terrorists and insurgents have used various types of vehicles to transport explosives, and other destructive substances, into a position adjacent, or literally into, a normally-secured or unsecured structure, whereby the explosives are detonated in some fashion to destroy or damage the structures, and injure or kill occupants therein. Recently, pedestrians, such as the so-called “suicide bombers,” have literally strapped explosives to their body, walked into a target area, and detonated the body-carried explosives, thereby killing themselves as well as destroying or damaging structures, and injuring or killing people, in the target area.
In recent years, barriers have been strategically placed to prevent such explosive-laden vehicles and pedestrians from being placed sufficiently close to, or driven directly into, such structures for the purpose of explosive destruction of the structure, and potential injury or death of the occupants.
While worth-while vehicle barrier systems have been devised in recent years, some of these systems are not readily portable, use elaborate and complex barrier structure, and/or require major alteration in the ground-surface topography to facilitate support thereof.
One such system involving elaborate and complex barrier structure is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,780,020, which includes a single high-strength cable extending between spaced I-beams, with the cable woven in an elaborate pattern through openings in the I-beams and around pipes adjacent webs of the I-beams. A crushable aluminum honeycomb structure can be used with the woven cable, pipes and I-beams to serve as a shock-absorbing element if the barrier system is struck by a vehicle. Also, panels can be placed between the spaced I-beams for aesthetic purposes, and to conceal the complex cabling structure.
In a security gate structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,507, multiple high-strength cables are attached to, and extend between, a pair of I-beams to form a barrier system. In a non-operated position, the barrier system is mounted below ground level for movement within spaced tracks in an underground structure, and the system is thereby not normally visible. When a vehicle approaches the gate location, a vehicle sensor is activated to raise the barrier system, and position the cables in the path of the oncoming vehicle. Opposite ends of each cable are looped about shock absorbers to sustain the shock of the vehicle moving into contact with the cables.